3. Legalizing would allow pot be regulated and kept out of the hands of teens, who are now using the drug at record levels, writes Paul Armentano, legalization advocate for NORML, in the Daily Caller. He asks, why not legalize a drug that has way fewer proven health costs than alcohol and tobacco?

4. Criminalization has unfair consequences, argues Cord Jefferson at The Nation. In America's cities, the vast majority arrested for possessing "negligible" amounts of weed are black or Latino. Of those charged, white folks are more likely to escape a conviction, says Jefferson, whereas minorities end up with a record that makes it hard for them to find work.

Do you buy any of these reasons for legalizing pot?

How many thousands of people are in over crowded jails/prisons for simple possession or sales of weed?Part of the difficulty in legalizing pot is that the manufacturers of "legal" drugs object. They stand to lose millions when grandma finds smoking a bowl will relieve her pain as well or better than her $20 per pill meds.

X2 Big pharm has to be bribed to even make child cancer treatments because the % of profit is so low. They will now have a bonus if they make child cancer med by having one of there other DRUGS rushed thru FDA approval. Can you believe that?

Hemp is largely illegal because it can be made to make durable products at a cost effective price. This ticked off the big oil because of it's promotion of oil based, plastic products.Did you know that Henry Ford produced a hemp plastic car? It was said to be "ten times stronger than steel!" I can't validate the "ten times stronger" claim. But think about a car body that could bounce back to shape after a fender bender. A car that could have the color molded into the body so that scratches and scrapes were almost invisible.

Jail, yes. Prison, no. Nobody does extended prison time for simple misdemeanor posession of marijuana. You either have to be a repeat offender or caught with an amount that indicates intent to distribute. And sorry, I don't have any sympathy for drug dealers. I know a guy who sells pot, and he seems like a nice guy, but if he goes to prison, too bad for him.

You are too right!! And about the plastic car, what a great idea! And if you crash your car, its recycleable. You can just smoke it! LOL! About the meds, I have a lot of stomach problems and the only medicine for nausea puts me to sleep! My pain management doc completely supports using bud for my nausea. If only it were legal!

Nope .. I hate tobacco too.. But it's amazing we demonize smokers and now we want to legalize something very similar.. Hard to hate one & endorse the other???? Raising tax money should be the last reason.

It's the same thing. Tobacco, pot, alcohol, Fast food, etc etc etc..... What you do is what you do. What I do is what I do. Personalty, I don't like men that dye their hair, but what ever floats their boats.

you know... it really doesn't matter if you hate tobacco smoke or not. if another person smokes it's none of your business. if you don't like to be with smokers, then don't go to places where they'll be smoking. that's simple, huh?

yeah... smoking is smoking... except for one thing. pot has no tar or nicotine, and according to both federal gov't studies, and medical studies it doesn't cause any damage at all to the lungs. it's not addictive, and it causes no harm to any internal organs. tobacco and alcohol do all of those. you see the difference?

i don't know about that weeblees,any smoke going into the body on a regular bases is going to do harm,thats just common sense,nicotine by the judgement of some researchers can be very useful, i know in Dare class they said that pot smoke was 5 times more harmful than coffin nails.i,ll look it up

http://www.dailystrength.org/health_blogs/dr-...Does marijuana cause lung cancer? We're not sure. Marijuana is not smoked with filters, unlike most cigarettes. Marijuana smoke contains nearly four times as much tar and 50 percent more carcinogens than tobacco.

Let me think, what is the downside of legalizing pot....decriminalization, tax tool, gang violence reduced and we might even reduce our prison population by half.. Not shown to be less healthy than alcohol or tobacco. What you all think?

Yes, I absolutely favor legalization of marijuana.Here in Oregon, it's on the ballot. We already have legal medical marijuana. It has always struck me as odd that alcohol, which frequently makes people violent, is legal! I've never known a pot smoker decide out of the blue, that he wants to fight everyone in the room. Many alcoholics get drunk and abuse their partners. Most pot heads I know, would rather make love than hate.

If someone wants to smoke pot, tobacco, corn silk or human hair, it's their business. BUT, the cost of any related problems is also the smokers business. Legalize it, fine. Tax it, great. Ask me to pick up any mess from it, nope.

: Health-related costs per user are eight times higher for drinkers than they are for those who use cannabis, and are more than 40 times higher for tobacco smokers, according to a report published in the British Columbia Mental Health and Addictions Journal.

According to the report, "In terms of [health-related] costs per user: tobacco-related health costs are over $800 per user, alcohol-related health costs are much lower at $165 per user, and cannabis-related health costs are the lowest at $20 per user."

No vote has ever been made as far as I know, but most sitting up on the hill don't give a damn what we want! If they did we would not be in the mess we are in right now. Things need to change or the America people need to over throw our own government! Its time to stop praying something will happen its come time to force the issue!

A heck of a lot faster than I'd buy into the idea that Chick-fil-As across the country are feeling the pressure that you guys are feebly attempting to put on them? You guys must have problems sleeping at night knowing that despite your best efforts, the funds are rolling in over at CFA. Why you seem to be taking a pro-criminalization stance on MJ is beyond me...oh yeah: I guess that you don't want any competition for your buddies in the Mexi-gangs!

Read how the question was worded there, Helen Keller: "Do you buy any of these reasons for legalizing pot?" Now tell me...what would a bunch of liberals have against the decriminalization of MJ? Well, I guess since Obama has flip-flopped over the last four years and decided that he is not in favor of it (likely due to the fact that it would actually help our economy without taxing the heck out of small-business owners who he believes do not pay their fair share), his followers were bound to fall in line.

"The only real problem I have with legalization is that currently police catch a large number of more serious criminals through routine pot busts."

I know you didn't mean to Stratton. But you just indirectly endorsed the "dragnet" method of law enforcement. That's the method used by the TSA at airports and now we are finding out... the NSA with our communications.

I cringe citing Eliot Spitzer and Current TV, but this is a story about what I mean.

Legize it. I am 18 years old and I have been doing alot of research on (weed) it is a harmless plant that grows naturally on gods green earth there is not one medical case that proves you can die from weed not one in the whole world go ahead try and find one. If you do pleas let me know. There has been many theories on weed and it's affects. There was one conducted many years ago on monkeys saying that weed killed brain cells, with many hours of research I found that the testing was not only false but a lie the animals mostly DIED BUT NOT BECAUSE IF THE WEED. it was because they used gas masked to force the smoke into the monkeys lungs therefor killing the monkeys from lack if oxygen not from the weed. There is also allegations that it causes cancer but once again it is just propaganda from the government. Don't you think if they had hard facts they would show them like a black lung from a weed only smoker ? Weed have the most medicals uses known to man look it up there are probably over 100. There is no way that the government can say something is bad for you and that you can't have it when tabaco kills millions of people every year I could go on about this topic for days on end and give you facts places dates documents on the testing anything you want just hit me up and I'll answer anthing that you can come up with about this topic.

I'm a smoker Righton. I'm also a conscientious smoker. When I''ve move I always took into consideration the neighbors. I ask before I move in. I don't want a neighbor who is going to hate me because they can smell smoke when they walk by my apartment. I've turned down apartments that I've liked because I understood the situation that my moving in would cause. That by the way was my objection to the "Ground Zero Mosque". It was an insensitivity to a real sore spot for a lot of Americans. That included me. I never denied that they had the right, I always asked why are they so insistent and couldn't come up with a good answer other than insensitivity at the least and a "mosque built on the rubble" at the worst.

On the flip side is the idea that a new person moves into an apartment next to me and then complains about the smoke. They're jerks and they are the ones pushing laws that ban smoking in public. San Francisco is leading the way on demonizing cigarettes and supporting marijuana.

you have just hit on two of the major reasons why pot shouldn't be legalised... taxes and gov't control.

if pot is legalised, then state and federal gov'ts will tax it until it's priced out of the reach of common people. not only that, but, like tobacco and alcohol (which btw, are harmful and addictive where pot is not) the quality will be regulated until it's just about like smoking oregano. if that happens, then the drug lords will still be raking in a fortune on good quality pot, while it lays on the shelves in stores until it's sold as a cooking herb, at best.

what needs to be done, and what i would support 100% is the decriminalisagion of pot... not the legalisation. don't restrict it or regulate it in any way. make it okay for anyone who wants to grow their own in their flower beds, and window boxes who wants to. make it okay to give it away as presents for birthdays and for christmas, but not okay to sell it anywhere; including stores. the only thing related to pot that should ever be sold is all the different varieties of high quality seeds for planting in garden stores everywhere.

Yes I do. I've said so for years. Personal responsibility is the real issue here. Nanny state mentalities are a thing of the past. All the old arguments have been disproved time and time again. The most used is " pot is a gateway drug " . Wrong, Crime is a gateway to crime.

So, like, will they have to admit they was wrong all along, or do they get a clean slate. Do they get to keep all the money they extorted and all of their human livestock they already incarcerated? Pot legalization is not enough, we need complete reform of our legislative and judicial systems to ensure that the laws which are passed are not arbitrary and actually do serve a beneficial purpose.